Passion fruit coconut sorbet

Passion fruit is downright weird — it’s ripe once the peel begins to wrinkle, at which point you slice it open to find it filled with yellow goo. Not the kind of texture you’d usually associate with fruit. That said, it’s a fabulous ingredient for cooking — full of intense, tangy flavor.

It also happens to be in season. I picked up a bucket full of passion fruit for less than five shekels (about $1.25) at my favorite corner greengrocer. They were going for six shekels a kilo, and these fruit are incredibly lightweight.

Passion fruit are so flavorful that I made this ice cream with three ingredients alone — passion fruit, coconut cream and sugar. It came out a beautiful buttery yellow, flecked with black passion fruit seeds, with a rich, creamy texture and a lovely flavor.

Taste the passion fruit-coconut mixture as you work — this is what your ice cream will taste like, and you can adjust the quantities of sugar/coconut/passion fruit accordingly.

If you want to extend the ice cream, you can add some water to the mix. Obviously, this makes the ice cream harder and less creamy, but it’s also a good way to make a bit more with a given amount of ingredients. Adding a cup of water won’t sacrifice much by way of texture.

Also, you can save time if you start with chilled ingredients. If you know in advance that you’re going to be making this, you can put the coconut milk into the fridge, so that the ice cream mix will be cold enough to put straight into the ice cream maker.

Slice open the passion fruits, and scoop out the filling (seeds and all). Mix with the coconut cream and sugar (and the optional water). Chill if ingredients are not at refrigerator temperature. Churn in your ice cream maker according to the instructions. Once the ice cream is frozen, put in the freezer to harden.

I actually never thought to take them out. They add crunch, and make the ice cream resemble the fruit that flavors it. In theory, you (in the general sense, since I know you’re not planning to make this ) could strain the mixture once it’s mixed with the coconut milk, since the liquid inside the passion fruit is too thick and gooey to strain on its own.

This sounds really good! I want to cook more with passion fruit but they’re very expensive here – about $2.50 EACH! If I were to find a $20 bill lying on the ground right now I would use it for passion fruits.

cant wait to try it… I have about 6 wrinkly passionfruits on my kitchen table – may have to add a tin of pulp to make up my shortfall.. At risk of sounding ignorant.. Coconut Cream – is this fresh Coconut Milk from the coconut fruit that you are talking about?

This recipe sounds and looks great but I will also need to find some pulp since all I have available right now are two little passion fruits I found in a japanese market for which I paid $3 each (and will never do again) but I couldn’t resist the temptation, I love passion fruit! How much pulp would I need to add to replace the missing passion fruits?

Wow, those are crazy prices! Unfortunately, I didn’t take exact measurements for the passion fruit after I removed the shells, but I’d guess that you’ll probably want about 375 grams of pulp (probably close to a cup). I’d recommend adding it slowly and tasting it until you get a good balance of flavors — that’s what I usually do. Good luck!

You can put the passion fruit seeds (the entire contents) into a blender with a little bit of water. Run for about 1 minute. Then you can use a strainer and you’ll have passion fruit concentrate…no seeds.
I do like the seeds, though. They add texture.

Btw, to get rid of the passion fruit seeds before mixing everything, you can blend the passion fruit in a blender for 20 seconds and the mixture will become watery allowing you to strain the seeds away.